Currently most commercial/personal applications are based on Web technology, such as a console of a Web Sphere application server, an E-bank website, a B2B website, G-mail, etc.
A Web-based Application has a large number of functions, while most of the users only use part of them. Moreover, the user will find that most user steps are repetitive when the user is executing some steps in Web-based applications to fulfill specific functions. The user hopes that such repetitive steps can be completed automatically on the website so as to improve efficiency and enable other users to share some repetitive steps easily.
For instance, in the prior art, WebSphere administrators often open/close JAVA GC (Garbage Collection) to collect any information related to a JAVA heap.
Currently Administrators must take following actions to open the garbage collection function:    1) Entering a user name and a password on a logon page of a WebSphere console;    2) On the console of the WebSphere application server, activating a “server” link and then activating an “Application Server” link;    3) On Application Server page, activating a “Server 1” link;    4) On Server 1 page, activating a “Java and Process Control” link, and then activating a “Process Definition” link;    5) On the Process Definition page, activating a “Java Virtual Machine” link;    6) On the Java Virtual Machine page, activating a “Run Time” link;    7) On Run Time page, selecting checkbox “Garbage Collection Detail” and then activating confirmation button.
Every time when opening the Garbage Collection, the process to be executed is the same as above, and thus time is seriously wasted and efficiency reduced. A method and device for automatically executing above steps is in need.
Currently Web Sphere Administrators need master JACL/JYTHON programming language skill. Thus they can write automatic tasks to execute above steps automatically. Therefore, Web Sphere Administrators expect to have an “Activate and Record” solution to record and replay all steps easily on the browsers. And, they do not expect to install any other applications such as LoadRunner. Here is another example. In this example, the user logs on the same B2C website every month to buy the same type of IP card. And the user is required to execute the steps as follows on each logon:    1) Entering a user name/password on the logon page of such website;    2) activating the “Card Type” link on the home page;    3) activating the “phone card” link on the “Type” page;    4) activating the link of card name the user would like to buy on the “phone card” page;    5) activating “Buy It” link on the card page;    6) entering credit card information and activating “Buy It” button on the “Pay” page;    7) Finding detailed card information (account number, password and so on) on the “Result” page.
The user expects to have an “activate and record” solution to record above steps 1)-5) for the user, so that every time when buying a card only one button is required to activate on web page, which will direct the user to the “Pay” page and let the user input credit card information and give a result. Moreover, the user does not expect to install any auxiliary tools, such as LoadRunner.
So in the prior art a method and device which can record and replay the user steps on browser without any other installation programs are needed.
In addition, in the prior art, there is a demand of allowing others to share recorded user steps.
Some functions in Web-based commercial applications have a lot of complicated and repetitive steps.
For example during the stage of application test and deployment, the deployed J2EE application will frequently access some related configuration pages on Web-based Console such as WebSphere Console, and execute some steps repetitively.
Currently WebSphere application developers can use some script languages such as Jacl/Jython for developing automatic deployment script for deployment steps executed on Web-based console. Furthermore, these developers expect to share such script with Web Sphere application testers for repeating these steps.
If these developers enable such steps recorded to be easily shared by other users, others can easily repeat such steps without any auxiliary application such as Load Runner/RPT, which will be greatly beneficial.